Category Archives: politics

Now, despite my views of Mr. Trump, I have been keeping relatively silent about the going-ons in the White House for the last 6 months. One, because there is already too much coverage on it in the media and on the internet and two, out of respect for those who still support the man. I may disagree with your views but I felt it would be wrong to deride or ridicule them.

And then, I came across this wonderful gem below on the internet which touched on the recent short 10 day term of Anthony Scaramucci as Trump’s Communications Director and other current news. It has been reposted so I don’t even know its original source but I thought it was really creative and funny. So forgive the squirrel for this lapse in said principles above. But this deserves to be celebrated. Mago, I think you would particularly enjoy this.

Most of us like action movies. The explosions, the guns blazing, the mayhem and usually the good guys win and they look cool doing it. For a couple of hours we escape into a fantasy world of thrills without any bodily risks or consequences.

But as recent incidents around the world has demonstrated, it is completely awful when it happens in real life and impact real people.

This last couple of weeks, a couple of Hollywood type stories played out on the streets of my city, Kuala Lumpur; stories with drama, action, suspense and intrigue.

Abduction

Pastor Raymond Koh was driving his car on an errand to deliver a food gift to a friend who was about to travel abroad. At least three black SUVs screeched in, blocking off the road and boxing in his car. Men with black balaclava masks poured out. A couple of them stopped oncoming traffic and another was seen apparently filming the incident. Pastor Raymond was forced into one of the SUVs and the three vehicles then sped away together. He has been missing since the 13th of February.

Pastor Raymond is active in a number of Christian charities and was the founder of Harapan Kommuniti (Community Hope) which holds free tuition classes for children and English lessons for adults from low income groups. In 2011 though, the Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais), in a controversial move, raided a community thanksgiving and fundraising dinner at a church and accused Pastor Raymond’s organisation of proselytising Muslims.

There has been no ransom demand or any communication from the abductors and despite numerous eyewitnesses and CCTV footage, the police have not reported any progress in their investigation.

Many Malaysians (including me) have been praying daily for his safe return.

Assassination

Our international airport was the ground on which our tale of international intrigue and skullduggery occurred; real James Bond stuff. A Korean man traveling under the name of Kim Choi was making his way across the airport concourse to catch his flight to Macao when two young women approached him from different directions and appear to reach from behind and cover his face with a chemically laced cloth. They then left as quickly in opposite directions. After seeking help, the man collapses and dies shortly later.

It is now believed that Kim Choi is actually Kim Jong-nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The two women have been identified and arrested. One is a Vietnamese national and the other an Indonesian. The Indonesian woman claims she was approached by some men and paid to carry out what she had been told was a prank for a TV show. Police have also arrested a Malaysian man and a North Korean man. Interpol has been asked to help hunt down four other North Korean men who left the country the same day as the incident. The North Korean government has also objected to the autopsy investigation.

Malaysia continues to be making the news for all the wrong reasons. Come on 2017, start getting better.

I will keep praying for Pastor Raymond and for Malaysia. However, I promise to nudge 2017 along in the right direction by having more positive posts in the next couple of weeks.

Below is an excerpt from the highly esteemed BBC talking-type wireless show (or so they claimed for themselves), The Goon Show. Written by the rascally Spike Milligan, the episode entitled “The Affair of the Lone Banana” has our intrepid but dumb hero, Seagoon, going to South America in search of a missing British citizen. But when he arrives, he finds himself in the midst of much social unrest…………

Seagoon: Now, now what’s all this about?Moriarty: It is the revolution señor – everywhere there is an armed rising.Seagoon: Are you in it?Moriarty: Right in it – you see, you see señor, the united anti-socialist neo-democratic pro-fascist communist party is fighting to overthrow the unilateral democratic united partisan bellicose pacifist cobelligerant tory labour liberal party!Seagoon: Whose side are you on?Moriarty: There are no sides – we are all in this together.

I used to think this was so funny even though I knew that sometimes reality actually sails very close to this. Unfortunately, it has now even come closer to home, to Malaysia.

On the 19th of November, thousands of Malaysians put on yellow shirts and attended the Bersih 5 rally on the streets of the capitol, Kuala Lumpur.

Aerial view of just one of the rally locations:- How many yellow shirts? (some say 50,000; police say 15,000; one establishment newspaper claimed about 5,000)

But they were not alone. Just like the Affair of the Lone Banana, there were other parties present too and they were all in it. I hope to try to give some clarity to the situation.

In the end, the yellow shirts far outnumbered the rest. There were probably more than 50,000 yellow shirts and about 2,500 red shirts. The red shirts dispersed before long.

The police arrested many yellow shirt leaders and a few red shirt leaders briefly. However, Maria Chin Abdullah, the leader of the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections was jailed and placed in solitary confinement under an Act designed for action against terrorists. Malaysians of all kinds of color shirts held nightly vigils for her release and she was finally freed after 10 days although the police say they are continuing their investigation of her.

The nightly vigil for Maria’s release from solitary confinement.

If all this was rather confusing, let me just a summarise it for you. In a nutshell, we are in a lot of trouble in Malaysia and no matter what color shirt, we are all in it. If we are not careful, we will all sink in it. What is needed is for us to drape ourselves in the multi colors of our national flag, put down our own selfish interests and fight for a country with justice, equality and opportunity for all Malaysians.

After I run helter skelter until I am exhausted, I calm down and I reasoned……. maybe it won’t be so bad. Yeah, we can’t change the fact that he will be the next American President and leader of the free world.

Do you know what’s scary? Answer:- the way I procrastinate. If you look back over the years, readers will find that I will be making New Year Resolutions and wishing every one a Happy New Year sometime towards the end of January. Likewise, I tend to leave my Christmas decorations up and try to disguise them to make it look like I put them up specially for Chinese New Year a few months later. So just yesterday, I finally got to watch the movie that I had set aside for Halloween.

It’s a Korean movie titled, “Train to Busan”. As if train journeys are often not horrific enough, they throw in large numbers of evil, undead zombies. It is a big hit in Korea and you know what? In my humble squirrel opinion, it deserves every good review it has received. As with any zombie movie, it is not so much a spine chilling horror experience but more of an adrenaline racing, heart pounding action movie. But the human element is well crafted into the story and the acting surprisingly good; especially the young girl in the story. I recommend it.

You know what else is scary? The real world! Starting with Korea where the Korean President is alleged to have been unduly influenced by the daughter of a cult leader (BBC story); to Indonesia where thousands took part in violent and fatal protests in the capital Jakarta because they do not want a popular (and generally held to be an effective) non-Muslim governor overseeing a majority Muslim city; and finally the insane circus of the current U.S. Presidential elections. Hilary or Trump? The squirrel shakes his head at both but trembles in fear at the thought of President Trump.

And so, we squirrels have decided to intervene for the sake of the world.

So it is happening again. First, Anwar Ibrahim, the main opposition leader in Malaysia, has been in prison since February 2015 after being convicted on sodomy charges. Many believe that the whole case was arbitrary and politically motivated and that was the conclusion too of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention .

Now, Lim Guan Eng, the Chief Minister of the state of Penang, is being charged with corruption. Specifically, he is being accused of buying a house from a Ms. Phang Li Khoon for USD 645,000 when the prosecution contends that the market value of the property should be in the region of USD 1,065,000. It is alleged that this favorable transaction was tied to the Chief Minister asserting influence to have a different piece of land rezoned from agricultural to commercial use. This is despite the fact that the State Council has said that no such land use conversion had been approved and in fact the application had been rejected.

Lim Guan Eng is another opposition leader. He is well respected and many people credit him for reducing corruption in state government machinery which has resulted in a the state moving from a large deficit to becoming the most fiscally successful in the country. So, many are unconvinced that there is a corruption case to be answered.

Many on social media have noted that the Attorney General was quick to bring charges in this case and to bring it to trial. Yet, in January, the same Attorney General cleared Prime Minister Najib Razak of wrong doing with regards to USD 12.5 billion debts accumulated by the state development fund 1MDB which he set up. This even while 1 MDB is being investigated in at least 5 countries for irregularities and Swiss authorities have opened criminal proceedings related to 1MDB on “suspected corruption of public foreign officials, dishonest management of public interests and money laundering”. The Attorney General also accepted that there was no wrong doing when about USD 650 million was paid in to the Prime Minister’s private bank account.

Anyway, an appeal was launched for donations of USD 2.50 each to be collected to pay the approx. USD 250,000 bail for Lim Guan Eng. Public support was evident as the target was reached in less than 24 hours.

And so, there is going to be more legal drama and political maneuvering in the near future and for many Malaysians, an extremely bitter taste in the mouth.

I just can’t leave you guys alone, can I? I mean, I go away for a weekend holiday and BREXIT happens! I mean, really!!

Anyway, the squirrel is now back and as a public service to those who are still stunned and confused over what happened, here is “Brexit for Dummies”.

#1. The British held a referendum where they could vote to Remain or to Leave the EU.

#2. Guess what the Brits chose!

#3 The result was a shock to many around the world and gave many politicians, leaders, captains of industry, financiers and ordinary citizens a BIG, BIG headache.

#4. It would seem to me that Britain would be poorer for leaving the EU.

#5. What followed has been precipitous drops in the value of the British currency and stocks, downgrading of the country’s credit rating and England’s soccer team being knocked out of the Euro 2016 by lowly Iceland. It has been a bad week all around.

#6. Finally, as the early impact of the decision is being felt and some Vote Leave politicians backtracking on what the promised could be achieved by leaving the EU, more than 3.5 million Brits have signed a petition asking for a second referendum in what can only be described as BREGRET.

Viewing the World Through the Observation of Squirrels

About Me

Lone Grey Squirrel
I am a scientist who enjoy the arts; a socialist who wishes to be rich; a food enthusiast who wishes to be skinny and a human who loves squirrels. Just a nutter trying to make sense of the world.